TCC Podcast #111: The Red Carpet Dream with Erika Lyremark

Erika Lyremark, known as the “business whipstress,” is our guest for the latest episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Like a few of our other guest experts, Erika doesn’t call herself a copywriter, but she has written her own copy (it’s good) in the past and knows a bit about the business struggle copywriters go through. So Kira and Rob asked her about: •  how she became the “business whipstress” •  her red carpet dream and how to find yours •  how to get clarity around “your thing” in your space •  the importance of clearing clutter (real and imaginary) •  the types of clients she works with and the problems she helps them solve •  the three things to focus on when developing products •  Erika’s creation process and how she goes from idea to glamorous products •  why it’s important to get outside of your bubble when creating your brand •  the biggest takeaways from each step of her career path •  how discipline and structure contribute to her success •  why she doesn’t call herself a copywriter even though she writes a lot of copy •  two things you need to do to establish your authority •  how to get better at selling (and why you should) •  boundaries and how to get comfortable with them Sounds pretty good, right? We think you’ll like this one. To hear it, click the play button below, or download it to your favorite podcast app. Readers scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Think Like a Stripper (Erika’s book) Mark’d Mastery (Erika’s business program) Autumn Thompkins Laura Belgray Sam Horn Cashvertising Hypnotic Writing Tony Robbins Paul Jarvis Erika on Instagram Srini Rao DailyWhip.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground. Kira:   It's our new membership, designed for you, to help you attract more clients and hit 10K a month consistently. Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. Rob:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two, to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You are invited to join the club for episode 111, as we chat with author and business coach, Erika Lyremark about how she became a business whipstress, what it takes to truly stand out, writing great copy, even though she doesn't call herself a copywriter and what she has done to up level her business. Kira:   Welcome Erika. Rob:   Hey Erika. Erika: Hello. Kira:   I'm so happy to have you here. You have been a mentor to me for years before I even started my copywriting business so I feel like this is just such a great place to be with you right now. Erika: Well I am very thrilled to be here as well. Kira:   All right. Let's start with your story. How did you end up as a business whipstress? Erika: I don't think that was on my list of occupations when I was a young lady. I wanted to be a race car driver, I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I always knew that I wanted to be in charge. Like no matter what I was doing, it's like if I'm not in charge, I actually don't do well. I'm a terrible employee, but if I know that I'm in charge, I actually excel at that. So, I mean, long story short, I'm super nerdy, I love learning. I'm hardcore Type A, I'm super driven. I've always been really really motivated in my life. I'm also highly creative. I've always been really creative. I'm very much left brain, right brain split, so there's one side or the other. It's constantly arguing with the other side. In the 1990s I was a stripper for nine years out in Seattle, Washington, where I live now and in 2001, I left the industry and I moved back to Minneapolis, which is where I grew up, and started a commercial real estate company with my dad. It was really ... there was no intention behind it. It was like, dad I need I job and he's like, okay, I'll give you a job. Just I really want to help you quit stripping and it turned into creating a multi-million dollar commercial real estate investment company, which is still around. I'm no longer involved in the day to day details of it, but I'm still a partner in the company. In 2003, 2004 I loved what I was doing, but I didn't feel stretched creatively and I felt like I had more to give, and what I know about myself is that once I figured something out, I had to do something. I tend to get bored, so it wasn't the kind of career where I could really pour my heart and soul into what I was doing, it was really missing that super high glam, super highly creative side of myself, so I started to think about what else I could do. Long story short, I got this idea from, believe it or not I'm actually embarrassed to say this now, but watching the reality TV show, The Apprentice. The first time I ever watched it, I saw how much the entrepreneurs were struggling and I was like, oh my God, I could totally become a coach and I could help entrepreneurs kick ass. So, that was my original idea. It started out with, I'm going to have a reality TV show, but I don't have any media training. I live in Minneapolis. You know the internet didn't really exist back then, you know there's no social media, so I really was starting with just like this crazy ass dream and this desire in my heart to make a difference and to really do something that I felt like I could really succeed at and it took me seven years to transition into my own company. I went in full time in my own company in 2011 and I've been going strong ever since then. Rob:   So Erika, I think you know that ... we gave away your book at our event in New York, in fact I think you provided those books for the people who were there, which is awesome. As I was reading through your book, you talk a lot about the red carpet dreams. Over and over, it was like pursuing the red carpet dreams. Will you talk a little bit about what the meaning of the red carpet dream is and how important that is for what you have done in your career as well as what maybe we should be aiming for in ours? Erika: Yeah I think people always need a larger vision, a dream that's bigger than them. Something that pulls them, something that pushes them. I think by nature humans are lazy and unmotivated and I feel like the reason I've always been motivated and not lazy is because I have a big imagination. I've just always been willing to go there. Like I can see things for other people that they cannot see. You know, Kira was talking about she's been a client of mine for a long time, and I just see potential and possibility in people everywhere I go and so it's really important for people to play in the role of imagination and to think bigger. It doesn't mean that you have to be working super-duper hard, so you're killing yourself and you're not sleeping at night, and you're not taking care of yourself. But I think it's really important for people to have something that they're working toward, something that drives them, something that motivates them. There's definitely been times in my life where I was no longer in alignment with my red carpet dream and so I suffered as a consequence of that. So as part of my own survival strategy and my own success plan, it's always really important for me to have big dreams and have big goals, and to have big desires. Kira:   Erika, you know you mentioned that you knew from the beginning, probably from a young age, that you loved to be in charge. That's how you run your business, that's why people love you, because they want you to tell them what to do and so they pay you for that, happily. You had that clarity early on, but I feel like a lot of copywriters still are trying to figure that out. Like, what do I do well? What should be my thing within the copywriting space? So what advice would you give to them when they're struggling to figure out what that is? Erika: Well something that has helped me immensely is to develop viewpoints and what is your way of doing things? When I realized that I had this particular way of moving through the world that was unique to the way other people moved through the world, I mean it's me being bossy. I've been bossy my entire life. When people say, I'm not bossy, I'm the boss, I'm like, no I'm bossy and I'm the boss. It's just really being unapologetic about who you are and not everybody is bossy, but everybody has a different way or a different way that they move through the world. So, I've almost always had some sort of copywriter on retainer or hired copywriters for different projects to help me. As you know, Kira, I run a ton of copy in my business and there's just no way that I could do everything that I do all by myself. There's a writer that I work with from time to time, I used to work with her more in the past. Her name's Elle, and Elle is this fantastic researcher. I was like Elle, what do you think about this, or what's your view point on this? And she will come back with the most incredible report because research is a huge gift that she has. So it's really paying attention and looking for the gifts that you have and then being unapologetic about them, and then developing viewpoints as a result of that. For people who just meet me, it's very easy for someone to say, oh she knows who she is and she knows what she wants, but it took me a long time to be who I am, and a huge part of that is developing the viewpoint, it's being unapologetic about who you already are and then being more of that person and then also one of my firm beliefs and one of my firm values is clearing clutter. Whether that's energetic clutter, whether that's physical clutter.